Service Learning Partnership to Send Students to Boarding School Museum

University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) students participating in the UNO Service Learning Academy project Sacred Circle will spend Tuesday, October 29 with South High Magnet School students at the Genoa Indian Boarding School Museum in Genoa, Neb.

The partnership will join UNO Native American Studies students taking “Special Topics in Native American Studies: Indian Boarding Schools” from Edouardo Zendejas with Native Indigenous Centered Education (NICE) students from South High.

The UNO group, led by Jeffrey French, Varner professor of Psychology, Biology and Neuroscience at UNO, reviewed the published literature on species of mammals (the taxonomic group to which human beings belong) in which females are not only more aggressive than males, but in many cases are socially dominant over males.

As part of the Service Learning Academy’s initiative, the students partner together weekly to discuss their lives within the native culture and share their personal expression of identity within the rituals and traditions commonly practiced.

Students will be meeting with docents at the museum to learn about the history of the site, the founding of the town and the history of Indian boarding schools and their relevance in Native American history. They will also view a short video that explains the impact of the boarding school experience and tour the grounds to learn more about the site’s historic landmarks. The partnership will continue after the visit, as the students will continue to research their own heritage and former students at the school.

The Genoa Indian School was in operation from 1884 until 1934 and was one of the nation's 16 Indian Boarding Schools established by the federal government. In 1976 the school was declared a State Historical Site and two years later a National Historical Site.

For more information, contact Katie D’Agosto at the UNO Service Learning Academy at kdagosto@unomaha.edu or at 402.554.4462 or 402.709.4550.

Additional information can be obtained through Laura Krueger at 402.554.2713 or lkrueger@unomaha.edu.

The University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) is Nebraska's metropolitan university. The core values of the institution place students at the center of all that the university does; call for the campus to strive for academic excellence; and promote community engagement that transforms and improves urban, regional, national and global life. UNO, inaugurated in 1968, emerged from the Municipal University of Omaha, established in 1931, which grew out of the University of Omaha founded in 1908.